WFB 195: Journal 3
Date: May 26, 2021
Time: 7:20-11:45
Location: Underhill State Park, Underhill, VT
Habitat: Today my assigned birding area was Underhill State park. As many know, Underhill State Park is at the base of Mt.Mansfield. We started by walking the trail leading up to the trail heads, and then hiked to Cantilever rock. As with most mountains, Mansfields forest type changes as elevation increases. Today, because we didn't hike very far, we were in primarily Northern Hardwood Forest. However, as we got closer to Cantilever rock, coniferous trees became more prominent. Birds found in the beginning, and in the hardwoods, included the Red-eyed Vireo, Pileated woodpecker, Downy Woodpecker, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, and others. As we climbed in elevation, species like the Yellow-rumped Warbler and White-throated Sparrow were more abundant. Another interesting observation was that I saw some Yellow-rumped Warblers chasing one another. I couldn't tell if they were males or females, but I saw pairs more than once chasing one another through the trees. A hiker we ran into also told us that a pair of hawks dived at her towards the top of the mountain. I assume this was because her and her dog got too close to their nesting site. A technique that worked great today was pishing! More than once I was able to bring birds in with this technique. This was incredibly helpful since majority of the time, you could only hear the birds and not see them. At one point, after only a few minutes of pishing, some Red-eyed Verios, Yellow-rumped Warbler, and Black-throated Green Warbler came to the surrounding trees. The biggest difficulty with todays birding was having to identify birds by only song/call...Not only were almost all these species new to me, it was hard to pick up clear recordings. A lot of the time, calls/songs were overlapping or a certain species was more prominent. Red-eyed Vireos for example, dominated with their calls and were by far the most abundant species.
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